By-pass surgery is a well known procedure for replacing blood vessels clogged with cholesterol and fat in a human being with blood vessels which will cause blood to flow around the clogged vessels.
While many different blood vessels in the human body have been used as a by-pass blood vessel, preferred blood vessels to use are the left and right mammary artery.
After the chest and breast plate bone have been cut in preparation for facilitating access to the patient's heart during heart by-pass surgery, the left and right mammary artery will be just below the surface of each side of the cut in the chest. Since the portion of the chest adjacent to the cut is very stiff, it is impossible to manually evert the edge to facilitate easy harvesting of the mammary arteries. It is very difficult to harvest the mammary arteries without bringing them into full view by eversion of the edges of the cut in the chest. To date, there is no completely satisfactory apparatus for achieving the eversion of the edges, therefore there is a need for an apparatus which will quickly, easily and dependably accomplish this function so that the mammary arteries can be held in full view of the surgeon for the harvesting process.